Teen-age pregnancy is an ever increasing problem. Teen-age parents, surveyed as to why they elected to have a baby, gave such reasons as “babies are so cute,” “I wanted attention,” and “I needed someone to love and love me back.” Such idealistic feelings toward having a baby almost never include an understanding of the responsibilities imposed by a baby, including loss of sleep, loss of freedom, the need for constant attention, etc. Attempts to educate teen-agers about the trials and tribulations of caring for an infant and raising a child using the traditional educational methods of lecture and readings, are rarely successful.
Some resourceful educators, realizing that traditional educational methods are inadequate, have attempted to demonstrate the care requirements of an infant by requiring students to carry a sack of flour, an egg or a plant for several days. While somewhat exemplary of the care requirements of an infant, such programs do not fairly represent the care requirements of an actual infant and have proven to be of limited success.
Interactive infant simulator systems for use in educating students about the care requirements of an infant are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,443,388, 6,428,321, and 6,454,571. The infant simulators periodically generates a demand signal (e.g., a cry) throughout an assignment period on a schedule unknown to the student, with the student required to provide timely and appropriate care to the infant simulator (e.g., insert a key or change a diaper) in response to the cry.
It is well known and understood by those who have cared for an infant that it is absolutely necessary to continuously support the head of the infant whenever the infant is held. Infants are simply incapable of supporting their own head in an upright position for several months after birth. Failure to support the head when handling an infant can result in serious injury caused by flopping of the head.
A number of dolls have been designed with floppy necks, including the psychotherapy doll disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,494 issued to Woods and the training doll disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,351 issued to Gonzalez. However, neither of these dolls provide a realistic bending of the neck, (e.g., the neck of the doll disclosed in Gonzalez is simply pinched by a sew line to permit flopping of the head), nor do they include instrumentation to monitor and record undesirable flopping of the head.
Interactive infant simulator systems with a neck linkage allowing realistic rearward flopping of the head relative to the torso is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,941,757, 6,089,873, and 6,238,215. The disclosed infant simulators include a head floppily connected to a torso by a neck linkage which allows free rearward repositioning of the head relative to the torso as between an acceptable contented position and an unacceptable, harmful, rearwardly bent position. The infant simulator includes a head-position sensing unit for sensing the flopped position of the head relative to the torso as between the acceptable and unacceptable positions and at least one of (i) a data recording unit for recording a sensed positioning of the head in an unacceptable position for subsequent review, and (ii) a signal generating unit for generating a perceptible distress signal (e.g., a cry or scream) when the head is sensed in an unacceptable position.
While the infant simulator systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,941,757, 6,089,873, and 6,238,215 constitute a significant advance in infant simulators, a continuing need exists for improved infant simulators that realistically demonstrate the head support required by infants, and preferably include a system for monitoring, signaling and reporting flopping of the head as between acceptable and unacceptable positions so as to enhance the value of the infant simulator for use in educational programs for educating prospective parents about the realities of parenthood, assisting in the education and training of personnel entering the child-care profession, and assisting in the continuing education of persons working in the child-care profession.